


You Drew A Line

by prefertheconsultingdetective



Series: trial and error [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Berlin, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23414773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prefertheconsultingdetective/pseuds/prefertheconsultingdetective
Summary: Sometimes Steve feels like he there’s a void where his heart used to be and now, muscles and bones close around empty room, there’s nothing left and breathing gets harder and harder, his lungs trying to fill up his chest and the echo of his sighs are hollow in the empty space that’s left. It’s a terrible pathetic metaphor, but sometimes, he gets like that.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: trial and error [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684246
Kudos: 7





	You Drew A Line

**Author's Note:**

> I am currently posting unfinished projects from back in the days. I will share some of my ideas about it in the notes at the end.

> _ You keep your love in lock down suitcase  _
> 
> _ But you can still be so hurt  _
> 
> _ When I say that it might be too late  _
> 
> _ Why do you cry in your shirt  _
> 
> _ You drew a line so it will be alright  _
> 
> _ What you took was mine when you drew that line  _
> 
> _ There is a soul in a place so lonely  _
> 
> _ When you keep calling me names  _
> 
> _ I’ve not been seeing and I dying only I try to reanimate  _
> 
> _ (you left your mind in a world of sorrow that you are not willing to share  _
> 
> _ And you forgot how to spell tomorrow  _
> 
> _ Or do you simply not dare _

There’s a lead that takes them to Moscow, which isn’t really a surprise considering all the Russian. 

Sam and Steve take a cramped economy flight without informing anyone else. Steve doesn’t even dare to tell Fury about it. 

Natasha knows, though. But she’s scary like that, knowing things without talking about it - just like Sam knew, too, Steve hadn’t even needed to explain it to them. 

They sleep in a cheap hotel room where the wallpaper has ugly stains that Steve prefers not to think about. 

They spend their first day talking to a woman who’s husband was murdered viciously half a year ago. She tells them that he’s been involved with a group of men that have been both SS and Stasi and Steve is sure HYDRA, too. She says he must have broken some kind of rules, because he’s been afraid for weeks before they finally came after him. 

“He wasn’t sleeping anymore. I saw him sit in the kitchen and drink vodka and when he came back to bed and I asked about it he said they’d come for him.” 

She seems still shocked about the murder, but not too affected by her loss. She keeps rubbing her fingers over a scar on her cheek and touches her arms as if she’s still feeling the pain of old bruises. 

She says the man who murdered her husband moved like a ghost and looked like the devil, she says she had though he’d kill her, too, but he didn’t even look at her. 

When Sam asks if she knows anything about the people her husband has been involved with she reluctantly writes down a couple of names that she remembers him talking about. 

*

When they’re back in their hotel room in the evening, Steve knows that Sam wants to talk about it. 

Maybe Steve wants to talk about it, too, he doesn’t really know. He’s afraid of the things they could say. 

*

They call Natasha for help. 

Neither Steve nor Sam have an idea how to dig up people by only their names and an vague idea of the things they’ve done. 

*

Steve can’t sleep. He keeps listening to Sam’s deep breaths, the way the fabric shifts when he turns in his sleep and sighs nearly inaudibly during his dreams. 

It painfully reminds him of the other time he shared a room with a friend. 

When the darkness of the night fades into the milky twilight of the new day, Steve gets up. He silently leaves the room (he jots down a note for Sam, he doesn’t want to, but he nagging feeling of responsibility makes him do it anyway). 

He walks all the way to the Red Square and passes tourist groups and gift sellers. He thinks of his best friend and wonders if Bucky was ever here, undercover, like the guys in the movies these days.

Probably not. He still only has a rough idea of what has happened to James Bucharan Barnes, but sightseeing and playing tourist probably wasn’t part of it.

He remembers when he was undercover with Natasha and how she ordered him to kiss her, but somehow he’s sure that’s not really the way Bucky is working. And it’s a ridiculous and childish thing to feel, but he’s relieved. Bucky has become a killer, but Steve is still happy he’s not running around kissing random women. 

The thing is – the person that tried to kill Steve in DC probably wasn’t even Bucky. Not how Steve remembers him. The mysterious Winter Soldier is a machine, a cyborg assassin that doesn’t remember the life he’s lived before. 

It’s horrible and scary and Steve is nearly going crazy by the thought of him, but somewhere inside of him there’s the achingly real flutter of hope. He feels bad for it, maybe he should wish that it wasn’t true, that Bucky is really buried somewhere in the middle of nowhere. 

But Steve has thought that his best friend is dead and now he’s not and while he isn’t exactly alive either, somewhere the body of the person that has shaped Steve in so many ways, is breathing and living. 

And Steve is going to find it. He’s going to find it and save it and then he’s going to find Bucky in there, too, and he’s going to feel whole again. 

*

Natasha sends them a two addresses via encrypted email. 

The first one is in Gränna, which sounds so weird that Steve thinks for a moment she must be joking or it’s another code for the actual name of the place.

But Sam, who knows a lot of weird stuff, as it turns out, assures him that Gränna is an actual city in Sweden (“more like a village actually, he explains, but due to historical happenings –“ “Sam, really, I don’t really want the interesting tourist facts.”).

The other one is in Berlin, Germany. And they decide to go there first, because of the lesser distance to their current location. 

*

Berlin reveals itself to be a gray city, the clouds hanging low and the wind blowing into their faces when they step out of the airport. 

Sam and Steve take a taxi to the cheap hotel they’ve booked in advance. It’s 10 in the evening and Sam wants to sleep, but Steve feels like he can’t breathe when he’s in company. It’s not like it’s much better when he’s alone, but at least it’s an excuse to get out. 

The streets are still filled with people, it’s Saturday evening, Steve can hear the chatter of their voices and the heavy thud of shoes on the pavement. He listens to conversations in an unknown language that sounds fast and a little bit hard. There’s a couple walking in front of him, he can hear the woman laughing and the guy reaches out and takes her hand in light of the street posts. 

He rubs the fingers of his right hand against his chest. Sometimes he feels like he there’s a void where his heart used to be and now, muscles and bones close around empty room, there’s nothing left and breathing gets harder and harder, his lungs trying to fill up his chest and the echo of his sighs are hollow in the empty space that’s left. 

It’s a terrible pathetic metaphor, but sometimes, he gets like that. 

Steve tends to draw, when he can’t deal with his own feelings. He’s sketched dancing monkeys and dames in short skirts and there must be a thousand variations of Bucky’s face on paper, but the stuff he’s feeling now – there’s no way to get it out and pin it onto the paper of his sketchbook. 

*

The walk back to the hotel feels longer than before and Steve suddenly feels like he’s being watched, but when he turns around all he can see is the groups of people that have been there before, cigarette smoke and the drunken laughter coming out of open doors. 

He thinks he sees a glimmer of silver under the streetlights, but when he blinks it’s gone again. 

*

The next morning they’re having a very continental breakfast consisting of watery coffee, floppy toast and jam in tiny plastic packages. 

Sam looks up the address Natasha gave them and throws it into google maps. Steve sits next to him and thinks of old school maps. 

They take the subway that is called U-Bahn here and when Steve stands from his seat to offer it to an old lady she mutters at him in this strange language that always sounds a bit hard. “Danke, junger Mann”, she says and smiles warmly and he tries to smile back. 

She reminds him of the old woman that used to live in their street in Brooklyn and he has to look away. 

They’re standing at the end of the wagon and Steve turns his head to look through the window into the next one, his gaze sliding over teenagers and mothers with their children, men in business suits and then – in between, there’s him. 

Grey eyes and dark hair against the dirty walls. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This one must be from 2016 and I really wanted to write a Post Winter Soldier Story that was set in Berlin, with Bucky speaking german and befriending (or, lets be real, being befriended by old people). I would have loved him to have ~his~ Späti, because obviously Bucky wouldn't go to a supermarket.   
> Steve and Sam come to the city to look for him, but he's prepared and basically waiting for them, following their every step, which starts Steve running after him, but Bucky always being able to hide, but then he can't stay away either.  
> Finally he allows Steve to approach him and says stuff like "I don't know who you are." and "Your mother's name was Sarah." and shows Steve where he used to hang out with polish junkies at Kotti, because he has no idea how to be around humans and maybe they would kiss eventually on the old Stasi building at Alexanderplatz (that now says Alles Anders Platz meaning everything different square which is oh, so fitting.) So yeah. Imagine the rest.


End file.
